You Think You Have Forever
by Ianuaria
Summary: My first ever Meredith fic. Slightly dark, mostly twisted, just like our heroine.


**_Mostly a load of confused B.S written in order to clear out my head._**

 ** _I like Meredith, which may ce as a surprise to some people since I'm such a rabid Addek fan._**

 ** _But I do, and she's a really intriguing, complex character I'd love to explore._**

 ** _So, if you'd like to see more Meredith - and possibly, some experimental MerDer - from me, leave me some prompts!_**

* * *

She used to be important.

She thinks so - no, she knows so, they tell her that sometimes. She used to be important, somewhere where it was cool and quiet and machines made soft noises. They looked at her for instructions, and nobody asked her _how are we feeling today?_ She knows what she used to look like. There's a picture by her bed, and there are children in it. Three. That must have been hard. Not that she remembers.

She forgets a lot of things. Like how to eat, and when to sleep, and that socks don't go on her hands.

But she doesn't forget him. That man in the picture.

She sees him emblazoned on the backs of her sleep-sticky eyelids, laughing blue eyes, and when they shake her awake she wants to call out to him but she can't quite find the name.

She used to love him, she sees flickering houses of candles and a small piece of blue paper, a baby with merry dark eyes and a strange drawing on a wall. He doesn't come to see her.

Other people come, a girl named Ellis, with pink hair and pale eyes ringed black. The name is familiar on her tongue, so she's polite to her. Sometimes she'll cry quietly and then the smiley nurse tugs her out of the room with a smile even faker than her normal one. The one named Zola comforts her, she's stronger. She tells her Bailey will come.

Which doesn't make sense, because a woman named Bailey _does_ come, she has a loud voice and soft eyes. She calls her Grey, and tells her things about surgeries that make her feel a little flutter but she can't recall why. And she brings her sweet pink stuff in cups, cold and sweet, dripping sticky onto her hands. The nurse isn't happy.

She used to know what happy meant. She used to laugh, loud and bubbling and carefree. She only laughs on the second day of the week now, when Cristina comes. She tells her filthy inappropriate things and asks her if she regrets messing with the trial. She has no idea what she means, so she smiles and shakes her head. Cristina laughs.

but she doesn't sound amused.

She says they'll always be dark and twisty. She doesn't understand why, because it's always bright here, so bright that it sometimes hurts her eyes. She can see the ocean from here, and the sky is almost always cloudless blue. It makes her lonely, because she remembers being happy where it was damp and grey.

Here, it never rains.

She's here because Zola works here. She's strong, that one. Smart. She looks like the almond eyed little girl in the bedside photo. Maybe they're the same.

Zola tells her she's a doctor. She's learning from the best. She brings a lady with vivid red hair to see her once. She has eyes the color of the sea outside her window and she feels a little unsettled by her. But she's nice, she shows her pictures of a caramel skinned young boy and a girl with curly red hair. A tall man with his arms around them. A family.

The red haired lady tells her she has one too, a family. She laughed when she said it, a sad little laugh. _It was all for the best, I suppose_ she said as she left but she didn't say where this family is now.

There's a silver trophy in her room, next to a funny looking fork. Cristina says she's a sneaky bitch, but Cristina has _two_ so it doesn't matter. Maybe it used to matter, a lot.

Alex... Alex is the one who tells her about the old days. When she remembers to ask.

He doesn't really like to talk about it. He shakes his head when she remembers numbers, _007_ , and he leaves when she asks about Izzie. Izzie is the other blonde in a picture Cristina brings her. She's the first, fisting a bottle, arm slung around a woman with a cloud of black curls who can't be Cristina because Cristina never smiles.

The girl named Ellis is here again, her soft scratchy voice wakes her from a nap she's been drifting in and out of all day. She clutches a tatty old doll with pieces of lumpy colorful plastic falling out of it. She's too old for dolls but she's upset, her icy eyes shot through with red so she lets her sit curled in the armchair until Zola comes to get her.

 _Mom_ slips from her mouth accidentally and then she's shaking because no way is this her child. She'd remember her child, wouldn't she? She doesn't have a child. She tells them as much and then Ellis cries and they're being asked to leave.

 _Damn it Meredith_ a short woman with choppy dark hair yells the next morning. She says she hurt her daughter's feelings. The nurse tells her not to yell, like she said to her last night when she helped her take her pills. Only she's nicer this time.

What daughter? She blinks slowly as -Amelia- shows her pictures on a flat little screen that moves when she touches it.

Ellis and Bailey and Zola. She has a family.

Bailey comes, finally, wearing fatigues and a grin and a sister on each arm.

He looks _just_ like him, messy dark hair and eyes like the sky. It hurts to look at him.

It hurts other places too. They give her pills in paper cups that she hides under the mattress because they make her feel like she's drifting in the thin clouds and when that happens she can't look at Ellis and Bailey and Zola and she needs to look at them.

She whispers it over and over and over at night, turning into the suffocating pillow. _EllisandBaileyandZola._ Over and over and over again until she falls asleep. She can't forget, not again.

Not when Ellis is finally smiling again. Her hair turns out to be blonde under the pink, same as the old Meredith's. She snuggles close on warm afternoons, smelling of bubble gum and glue and fruity perfume. Still so young.

 _I love you_ she says, sleepy. She says it back, because it feels good when she says it to her and she wants to make Ellis feel good.

She walks slowly into rooms and forgets why she's there; she stands in the doorway until she remembers but that makes her feel nervous but she doesn't know why.

So much she doesn't know.

She feels light when she moves too fast, black floating across her eyes and they shake their heads and pin needles into her arm, hang bags of clear fluid. She supposes she knew all about it once, because Cristina brings her a picture where she has on scrubs and a cap with ferryboats on it.

Strange choice, she's never really liked boats.

A man called Richard comes. He says he promised Ellis that he would look after her. But Ellis is right there, swinging a foot and staring moodily through her window.

It's all very confusing now, and she takes the pills because not taking them makes it hurt, somewhere in her middle. They take her to a hospital, and it scares her and her ears hurt form the shrill high sound that she realises comes from her own mouth; they put soft white cuffs around her wrists and a needle in her arm and then it's okay.

It hurts a lot and when she closes her eyes she sees _him_ , flickering through darkness. He beckons to her, standing in a long hallway lit by bright strips on the ceiling.

 _Meredith_ , he says, and his voice is achingly familiar. _I missed you._

She's missed him too.

But then there's a jolt and sharp pain and she's back in the hospital bed, dark liquid dripping into her arm and when she runs through her hair fluffy white strands tangle around her fingers, coming away in clumps.

Zola wraps her bare head in cool silk silk and warm kisses. They say something about a liver.

Which also makes no sense - _liver_ \- because it's what's killing her.

She sees him all the time now, mostly faint strains of his voice, his smile, a warm hand on her back.

When she sees him clearly, they always drag her back and her chest aches and there's a youmg girl with blue hair who cries all the time and she screams at the nurse to make her leave.

It's all too much and she gives up objecting to the strange faces who hover over her, _Meredith_ _look at me_ and she does, really she does but she's never seen them before.

 _You win_ the black haired woman says. _Your life officially sucks_.

She slides in and out of blessed slumber, preferring it to the confusion of being awake. At least when she's asleep, he's there.

Sometimes he's holding a baby, wrapped in white, and once when they don't wake her soon enough ribbons of red twist down the tiny sleeping face and there's a loud _bang_ and they both disappear, leaving her clutching at thin sheets.

There's an old woman, wrinkled and gray, with pale cat's eyes. _Don't hover, Meredith_ she says.

She dreams of riding on a carousel, calliope music in her ears, the horse too wide between her legs that don't touch the ground. She wants never to get off, she wants to go round in circles forever, watch herself in the whirling mirrors but it's slowing down, the music fading out.

She begs for more, more time, more...something, but his hand is gentle and warm around hers, tugging firmly.

 _Come with me_ he says.

And she does.

* * *

 ** _So...thoughts? I'd love to hear them all!_**

 ** _I know this was weird and short and possibly boring, but it was experimental._**

 ** _Don't forget the prompts!_**


End file.
